Craftaholics Anonymous Summer 2013 Gift Exchange - What I made

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I had the pleasure of being involved in the gift exchange this summer that Linda from Craftaholics Anonymous puts on twice a year! I read about it a few months ago, but just missed the last one, so I was very excited when I got the notification about the one this summer! The button below links up to the linky-party for this particular exchange.

Linda uses an awesome website, Elfster, that works as a sort of virtual "Secret Santa". I got paired up with the lovely Linda from Creative Commotion (though she admittedly doesn't do much blogging these days). You can also read about what she made for me by clicking here.

Now this exchange was actually last month, and this post is a little later than I was hoping for it to be. BUT better late than never, right?!

Heres what I made for Linda:

I started out asking her about some of the things she likes to do. She mentioned that her home is somewhat nautically themed, and she loves visiting the beach every year. I remembered reading about an awesome beach bag/towel/pillow over at DIY Enthusiasts. I made a few modifications to her design based on the materials I picked out, and the size of my towels. Here is the finished product.

 And rolled out, Django seemed to get the idea right away!

I had a blast picking out the materials and making this one. In fact, I want to do another one for myself! It makes a great gift for anyone who likes the beach, or even just hanging out at the pool, for those that arent lucky enough to live near the ocean.

I also remembered something that I had been wanting to try out based on this product I saw on Pinterest a while back:

You can get this product fron Etsy by clicking on the image.

I wanted to make something similar, with a picture frame on a chalkboard so you could write your own personalized messages around it. So I decided to try and make my own.

These are the materials I had:

And this was the end product:

It can be stood up vertically, or lain horizontally like in the picture. I must say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! It might be a little dificult to get the photos into the frame, since it is stuck onto the chalkboard, but I left a space at the top/side to allow the photo to slide in/out.

I was very happy with the gifts I made for Linda, and I got them mailed out to her on the very last day of the exchange!

What do you think? Have you ever participated in a gift exchange? Let me know your thoughts!